Sunday morning super blog

The original title for this post was "my morning dream fest." I had intended to express my thoughts about how I sit at my kitchen table with a pad of paper and write out my hopes and dreams. It turned into the super blog post. It doesn't even cover recent events, but it covers a good number of other topics. 

Each morning I sit with a cup of coffee and a notepad, (real paper and pencil) at the kitchen table and dream wondrous dreams of personal achievement goals, business goals, programming solutions and a myriad of other things. My pencil goes to places I only dream about and in little bulletized lists, stick figure drawings and if/else statements, my dreams are drawn out on by one.

I have several collage ruled spiral notebooks full of these dreams stacked in my office. Lately, I've been going through the older books shredding each page one by one, (yes I like some privacy).  I've noticed many of my dreams and ideas have come to pass, and I've noticed others that repeat over and over in my morning dream fest. I've been discarding many things this year. Not just my notebooks, but also old electronics, books, supplies, magazines and trinkets. The process takes my mind back in time but also frees me from some of the baggage.

I've also been discarding, (or at least compressing and saving to CD) many old computer files as I prepare my main computer for a clean sweep. Yesterday I cleaned off an old portable hard drive that had files and programs that were 10 years old. I would chuckle as I read some of these saved documents, relive the events in my mind, just before hit the virtual shred button. From old email to older forum posts, it all gets shredded eventually.

Since the beginning of 2006, I've been dreaming big dreams. From multimillion dollar appliance/home theater enterprises to innovative web based applications. I've written many times this year about how this 40 something guy is in a state of change. Some of these changes have been thrust upon me, others have been by choice. Some of these changes have been wanted, others are accepted no matter how painful they are.

I have so many ideas and dreams for business, personal and spiritual that sometimes I'm overwhelmed. It has been a chore to stay on task with so many "other" ideas I'd like to work on. For the most part I've been able to stay on task though the temptation to digress once in a while is too strong to avoid. Even this blog entry; it started out with the intent to talk about one thing and the flow of thought took it somewhere else. Back to the 'go with the flow' line of thinking. (New: "Take it as it comes.")

Over the past few weeks, I've been working on a core blog application that will allow me to centralize my blogging efforts and organize my thoughts a little more logically. This new program I am writing is a means to publish my opinions, ideas and thoughts in a more organized manner. It will also allow for searching, commenting, emailing, saving, linking and more. I've been building this tool in my spiral notebook for more than a year and as fate would have it, I've come to enjoy expressing myself through blogging and through this passion, made the need for this new tool essential.

This new web application will allow me to offer membership features to my readers. What I mean is users who would like to join my site will be able to create a username and password to access more tools. Simple things like commenting, subscribing, notifications and organizing will be available to the site members. Other members will be asked to join and assist with the site. From content contributors to freelance artists, this new application will allow authorized users to collaborate and exchange ideas.

All of this while I continue to develop the best darn local area resource on the internet. Yes, my thoughts and ideas are little jumbled but they are so in organized bits and pieces. I don't want to write too much about these ideas, nor the brick and mortar business ideas that I have rolling around in my head just yet. Let's just say that the changes of the past 12 months, as well as the experiences of the past 41 years have led up to the new changes and experiences I'm about to implement and enjoy.

When I sat to write this post, I was intending to simply notify you of some changes that will be coming to this blog. As usual, I've gone way beyond my intention and shared a little more than I had in mind. I do so for my own benefit and for yours.

The changes that can be expected here are drastic. One by one, I will remove and republish each post. I will annotate the original post date and if possible include the comments (if any). However, as I do this, I will be adding them to categories as well as associating each post with keywords, tags and other methods of cross reference. The audience, (you) will be offered the opportunity to join the website which will unlock a number of features including public and private commenting. I've received some suggestions that people would like to comment if they didn't have to be published for the world to see.

Part of this new membership feature will allow you to sign up for email delivery of new posts as well as comments to the posts or replies to your comments. It will allow you to create a profile but also choose how much or little of this profile you would like others to see. Once completed, the member will be able to request a digest of weekly posts with full content or just the headers.

Speaking of which (full content or just the headers), I've almost completed another cool little tool. I haven't come up with a name for it yet, but what it does is bring news from all over the internet into one location. It primarily uses news feeds from the sources, but what makes this different, at least for members, is the ability to choose how much or how little news they want to receive. The first section will be for the public and it will be limited to politics as I've been writing this feature for a client. All political related news feeds for the south central Kentucky area. Yes, it will used Ajax and RSS. I am hopeful it will be popular.

I could have used this time to work on all this cool stuff but sometimes it helps to just sit and write it out. It also reminds me how urgent the need is for my other software idea, "the task minder" which will allow me to organize and order the tasks.

There you have it. My Sunday morning blog. So many things I'd like to write this morning from the 'feeling' I got when I walked to the truck at dawn...

What is it about the first glimpse of daylight that charges the air?
 What is that feeling I get in the morning before the sun comes up in the morning?
  What makes that particular time of day so energized yet overwhelmingly peaceful?
    Is it the introduction of solar radiation to the void of darkness?
  Is it the anticipation of a new day by the birds, the bugs and the trees?
Is it something else?

I don't know for sure, but this morning that feeling forced me to stop at the top of my walkway and just feel it for a brief moment. I did and if felt good. I listened to the birds and crickets and looked in the direction of the sun. I closed my eyes and just felt it. Then... I heard the road sound of Scottsville Road and it ruined the whole mood. How I long for a home out of earshot of mechanical sounds. Out of the way, private and and quiet.

This is about 4 posts in one. Jeez I talk too much. Carrie and I may go to a new church this morning, I've left it up to her whether we go or not. It's a large Methodist church and I am hoping it can become our new church home.

Back on topic: I will post more about the new blogs and the new site as it develops. I am still planning on diversifying my blogs into more focused categories such as web stuff, personal opinions, political opinions, editorial commentary, health and fitness and more. Then next "manual" blog will be to help start building the supporting documentation for the new site. Look for it. Oh... and leave a comment or send me an email would ya? I'd like to know what you think.